CAIRO, 16 May 2011 (IRIN) – There is so much ammunition and unexploded ordnance (UXO) scattered across eastern Libya that local people will face a serious threat when they return home. However, it is difficult to determine the exact quantities because of ongoing fighting, experts say. (more…)

The Libyan government’s reported use of cluster munitions and heavy weapons in Misrata has caused substantial civilian casualties and may amount to crimes under international law, the United Nations said on Wednesday. (more…)

BAGHDAD (AP) — The Iraqi government’s failure to grasp the scope of its land mine and bomb problem has derailed efforts to clear what is considered one of the world’s most contaminated countries, two United Nations agencies said Wednesday. (more…)

Good news is in short supply. The economy remains bleak. The war in Iraq entered its seventh year last week, and violence reaches new pinnacles in Afghanistan. But there is one bright light amid all this gloom. Real progress is being made to ban cluster munitions. These are canisters of different sizes that release hundreds of bomblets on detonation, scattering deadly devices over an area as large as several football fields.

Afghan teenager Soraj Ghulam Habib, whose legs were blown off by a cluster bomb, is campaigning hard for a ban on such lethal munitions that would spare other children from his tragic fate.

A 10-year-old boy when the unexploded bomblet left him close to death, Habib, now 17 and wheelchair-bound, is in Dublin to press officials from 109 countries who have gathered to thrash out a landmark ban on cluster bombs.

The conference, due to conclude on May 30, is aiming for a wide-ranging international pact that would completely eliminate the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions among signatories.

Habib’s childhood curiosity with a funny-looking object left him a whisker from death, yet another innocent civilian victim of deadly cluster bombs. (more…)